Appy Pie - 9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Abhinav Girdhar
By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on December 12th, 2023 9:52 am | 3-min read

Table of Content

  1. Why Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile is Important?
  2. 9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business Profile
Not all businesses are entirely online. For small businesses whose customer base is offline, any kind of online presence is crucial. A business with no online presence will find it difficult to acquire new customers. Thankfully, Google has a solution for such businesses. That solution is Google My Business. You can read this blog to learn more about what Google My Business is. In the blog below, we shall focus on a different aspect: Optimization. Optimization is the lifeblood of anything that goes online, and your My Business listing is no different. Read on to find out what you can do to optimize your My Business listing and drive customers into your sales funnel.Appy Pie-9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

Why Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile is Important?

80% of Internet searches are done through Google. The massive share of Internet searching makes not being on Google a literal sin for businesses. And among those searches, most do not leave the first page of search results. And do you want to know something fantastic? The first page is where Google My Business Profiles make it be default! Google My Business listings are given priority over other search results and SEO plays a less important role for My Business listings. This alone makes Google My Business a must for a small offline business. To learn more about best SEO practices you can go through some of the best courses of Appy Pie’s Academy and can also skim through their detailed SEO related blogs. But that brings an important question. Why do I need to optimize if I’m already on the first page? Well, it is simple. It is likely your competitors are there too. For example, if you’re a California-based plumbing business and someone searches for ‘plumbers California’ your business needs to be at the top. The only way to do that is to optimize your Google My Business profile. The image given below is an example of an optimized business profile.Appy Pie - 9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business ListingAnother benefit of optimizing your Google My Business profile is that it makes your business more authentic to potential customers. A business listing with no pictures or reviews and just the name and phone number seems a risky proposition for a user.

9 Tips to Optimize Your Google My Business Profile

Given below are 9 tips that can assist in optimizing your Google My Business profile.

  1. Fill In Everything

    2. This sounds like something that will be done but its not usually the case. So many businesses fill half of what is supposed to go into their GMB listing and expect themselves to just rank. To make it clear that you’re the top business around fill in your GMB listing to the brim and make sure you’ve missed out none of it. Here’s a list of what all your business must fill in to make sure it ranks in the My Business listing:
    • Name
    • Address
    • Phone Number
    • Operating hours
    • Photos
    • Business Category
    • Website
    • Description

  2. Add Proper Photos

    3. Pictures speak louder than words. GMB listings that have photographs are more likely to be looked at. Photographs help potential customers assess if your business is worth dealing with. Ensure that the photos you upload have Google’s recommended resolutions. Try not to add blurry photos to your GMB listing. To tweak your photos and edit them, you can try Appy Pie’s Photo Editor. You can easily raise the resolutions, improve the colors and add the effects to your photos before adding them to GMB. Appy Pie’s Photo Editor tool lets you create perfect photos for your profile.

  3. Write a Professional Business Description

    4. To make sure people take your GMB listing is taken seriously, add a proper and professional business description. A proper business description talks about your business’ USP, mission and history. "No-code solutions to start, run and grow your business in a well-rounded manner." Writing a good business description for GMB takes a few tries to get right. The description shouldn’t be too long either. The rule of thumb is to take one or two keywords and model your business description around it. A recommendation would be to get it written by a freelance writer.

  4. Claim Your Short Name

    5. A ‘short name’ is a unique feature of the GMB listing tool. GMB is meant for local and offline businesses. Such businesses usually have a popular shortened name for the locals of the area and maybe known by a different name in their respective towns/cities. For example, McDonald’s is locally known as Maccas in Australia, so they go by the name Maccas in the country. This short name can be claimed by your business and help customers who know your local name find you on the Internet. This is a small hidden feature that most businesses might ignore but it is crucial for a localized small business. Make sure you claim your short name as soon as possible.

  5. Choosing a Category/Subcategory

    6. Business categories on GMB act as identifiers for your business. Google uses the categories and subcategories you enter as a reference to give the most relevant result to the user. Choosing the right category makes your GMB listing more likely to end on the potential customer’s search result. Make sure your Category/Subcategory is right for your business.

  6. Reviews and Rating

    7. Reviews and ratings can’t be optimized per se, but they can increase the authenticity of your GMB listing. Ask all your customers to leave a review on your GMB listing and respond to all reviews on your GMB page. The more reviews you have, the more authentic you seem.

  7. Posting on Google My Business

    8. GMB posting is not exactly popular but it is crucial for optimizing your GMB listing. The tool allows you to post small blog posts that can be used to give a short news update, share an offer, product news or talk about an upcoming event. Posting on GMB makes you seem active and an active profile is bumped up by Google’s algorithms.

  8. Linking Your Social Media

    9. If your business has a social media channel, you can effectively link your business to the GMB listing. Cross-linking your social profiles drives up your business’ likelihood to rank in search results. You can easily like the various social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and much more to increase the organic traffic on your GMB Profile. Also these platforms can help you promote your business at all new levels.

  9. Using Industry-Specific Features

    10. Google My Business has industry-specific features. For example, hotels have a unique knowledge panel on GMB. Find out if your industry has a specific feature in GMB too. Fill in whatever it asks of you. Those were a few tips to create an optimized Google My Business Listing. Google My Business is still a new tool. For a localized business, it is convenient and an excellent long-term marketing solution. It is subtle, informative and extremely simple to use. All it asks is some time to set it up. It’s the closest thing to a passive marketing approach online. Unlike other forms of marketing, the only true updates a GMB profile needs are reviews and occasional posting. It is a self-sufficient online marketing scheme tailor-made for offline businesses. Go on ahead and market your business to the online world and drive sales. You could learn more about marketing your business online with our Academy courses for various social media. Check out Appy Pie Academy today!

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Abhinav Girdhar

Founder and CEO of Appy Pie

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